Flawless sacrament is the stupidest most annoying achievement I've found

Vilhjálmur · October 2019

(TL;DR: This achievement sucks ass, post the most annoying/hardest achievement you've done in this discussion)

Don't get me wrong i'm sure there's other ridiculous achievements but seriously what the hell is were the devs thinking with this one?

For those who don't know, this achievement has you doing 6 other grindy achievements from a quest you can only do ONCE per day, some of these achievements has you doing perfect runs that can take a few tries because of how easily you can make mistakes, it's not even a matter of having skill and being good at sneaking, because of one of the achievements needs you to kill EVERY single target, which are 21 in total, and guess what, it's not a rotation, the same target can show up in your daily even if you did it two days ago, EVEN if you manage to pull everything off perfectly this achievement can take you 3 weeks of constant sacraments, and if you're not lucky (like me) it can take you more than 40 days, I'm only one target left from the achievement and it hasn't showed up in 2 weeks, you can't even abandon and see if you get a different target, it's RNG based crap, like seriously, where's the fun in this ***? sacrament dailies get stale after a week or two of doing them, why force people to do them for almost a month if they want the memento? They could at least make it so it's rotation where you know who's gonna be the next target, but nope, go kill the same dude you killed yesterday, better luck next time ***!

I can't do much but rant, I just hope they don't make *** achievements like these in the future, feel free to post down below any achievement you've done that you find ridiculous/grindy/annoying

redlink1979 · October 2019

I'm also just missing one target. System keeps giving me targets I've already killed several times previously.... So, I just stopped carrying about this truly annoying randomization system for this daily quest. Truly stupid that the system doesn't acknowledge what is already accomplished .

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom The randomization of the target selection doesn't make sense if the targets already killed aren't excluded for the "targetting lottery". Players can take weeks, months or even years (in the worst case scenario) to finish the list.

anitajoneb17_ESO · October 2019

Think an achievement is "stupid" ? Don't do it. Simple as that.
I've done this one on several characters because I enjoy doing sacraments, and I don't think the RNG part of it is that silly (although I don't think it's very clever either).
I did master angler because I enjoy fishing.
But I've never done the trophy achievements, not even on my main. Killing stuff in big bulks in the hope of getting something that I can't use anywhere, will forget immediately, that isn't even remotely funny per se or make sense lore-wise, and that I will vendor within minutes ? Nope.
To each his own, I guess. But calling one particular achievement "stupid", when so many achievements can, objectively, be called "stupid" (including some of those I enjoyed doing) ? Not really...

PS : regarding the "flawless sacrament", I've noticed over several characters that it is always the same NPC that takes ages to be called upon by the quest. I assume this is not pure and RNG and it's rather done on purpose, to keep achievement hunters playing this sort of content.

Vilhjálmur · October 2019

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Think an achievement is "stupid" ? Don't do it. Simple as that.
I've done this one on several characters because I enjoy doing sacraments, and I don't think the RNG part of it is that silly (although I don't think it's very clever either).
I did master angler because I enjoy fishing.
But I've never done the trophy achievements, not even on my main. Killing stuff in big bulks in the hope of getting something that I can't use anywhere, will forget immediately, that isn't even remotely funny per se or make sense lore-wise, and that I will vendor within minutes ? Nope.
To each his own, I guess. But calling one particular achievement "stupid", when so many achievements can, objectively, be called "stupid" (including some of those I enjoyed doing) ? Not really...

That's why I included the "Post your own achievements you find stupid" part, because this is not the only one and it's merely my personal choice because of how much I've struggled with it, at least with master angler you get perfect roes and interesting stuff

Everything can be optional in this game and I keep seing this "Don't like x thing? Don't do it" argument pop up everywhere but some of us really want the collectibles behind achievements, to say "Oh well just don't do it" is a poor excuse that overlooks the bad design behind these achievements, RNG just makes it grindier and boring, there's really no harm in tweaking a few things so you get the targets you need instead of making people do the same thing again or waiting for another day to get their desired target

anitajoneb17_ESO · October 2019

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

That's why I included the "Post your own achievements you find stupid" part, because this is not the only one and it's merely my personal choice because of how much I've struggled with it, at least with master angler you get perfect roes and interesting stuff

I didn't mean to criticize your post. My point is more something like "the stupidest thing about achievements is probably to hunt them"...
I did Master Angler long before Perfect Roe existed. All you got back then was white fish and trophy fish ! And there was no housing either, therefore no fancy boat to get. It was just the title "Master Angler".
And while I did this I was wondering why on Nirn some of my guilmates were after the trophy achievements, killing mudcrabs by the hundreds and exchanging tips on how and where to find more mudcrabs. xD

That being said, I found the guy who posted having done ALL achievements a few weeks ago to be truly impressive - but quite frightening too. Achievements are a double-sided coin I guess.

FierceSam · October 2019

I hate ‘Random Element’ achievements.

You know, the ones that aren’t actually achievements in the sense that it is something you have worked for, but ones where you were simply in the right place at the right time.

They don’t reward skill or ability

They don’t reward progression

They are the very definition of mindless garbage and contemptible game design

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you .... Orsinium Tax Collector

Vilhjálmur · October 2019

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

That's why I included the "Post your own achievements you find stupid" part, because this is not the only one and it's merely my personal choice because of how much I've struggled with it, at least with master angler you get perfect roes and interesting stuff

I didn't mean to criticize your post. My point is more something like "the stupidest thing about achievements is probably to hunt them"...
I did Master Angler long before Perfect Roe existed. All you got back then was white fish and trophy fish ! And there was no housing either, therefore no fancy boat to get. It was just the title "Master Angler".
And while I did this I was wondering why on Nirn some of my guilmates were after the trophy achievements, killing mudcrabs by the hundreds and exchanging tips on how and where to find more mudcrabs. xD

That being said, I found the guy who posted having done ALL achievements a few weeks ago to be truly impressive - but quite frightening too. Achievements are a double-sided coin I guess.

I agree with you on that, I'm honestly not an achievement collector, I only go after the ones with collectibles and dyes, I guess stupid is just poor wording from my part, but just saying we are able to criticize poor achievement designs and ZOS can do better to make them fun or less grindy

Parrot1986 · October 2019

The old Scamp achievements in IC has got to be worse than this.

Jacozilla · October 2019

Not disagreeing with the spirit of OPs post because it is a grind for sure - but helpful tip - the sacrament quest resets for some reason at least twice each day. Might be more but for 100% sure it is twice. So you 2 chances per day to check to see if the target you want is one of the remaining ones on your list.

I've chased this achievement on many characters and recently as few months ago my system was basically login, check on a char what the 'daily' sacrament was - and if it wasn't one of the remaining targets on my list, then do NOT do that particular mission offered.

If you turn in the quest, then obviously you can't do another because then that truly would be doing two 'daily' per day. That's not what I am saying - what you get is 2 chances to see if the target is one you need, and only do one of them.

Forgot the exact time of day so don't hold me to this, but something like 2-3pm or close to 5 but NOT tied to the same time daily login rewards change, which is 5pm PST, so maybe close to it but not exactly that hour. As I recall it for sure wasn't like dark out or evening hours when it changed. Best I recall it was like morning to early afternoon was target #1, and then changes to mission offering different target #2 (each day, 2 targets from the list offered)

Basically you get 2 chances a day to see which targets are being offered. I've tested this over and over, and it is not random per char, but same target for all characters/people, kinda like a daily pledge is same dungeon for all chars/people, not just you.

Maybe it's a bug, maybe a feature, who knows. Kinda like how if you get detected, unlike TG heist you can't just abandon mission and have it instantly reset. But you can, sort of.

As reminder, for TG heists, the instant you abandon the mission, you can take a new one with all the mistakes reset. But with DB sacraments, you need to wait a bit, helps to log fully out and let some minutes go by, best I recall like ~10 min. If you don't, then abandoning and retaking the mission will keep your detection penalty so you can't try for flawless - but if you abandon, log out, wait ~10min, you can actually 'reset' the penalties and get a fresh start.

TLDR - you can check twice per day, not just once, as the mission targets for some strange reason changes around early afternoon to mid afternoon'ish. Still makes it a grind but half as much as if you just check once oer day

Vilhjálmur · October 2019

Jacozilla wrote: »

Not disagreeing with the spirit of OPs post because it is a grind for sure - but helpful tip - the sacrament quest resets for some reason at least twice each day. Might be more but for 100% sure it is twice. So you 2 chances per day to check to see if the target you want is one of the remaining ones on your list.

I've chased this achievement on many characters and recently as few months ago my system was basically login, check on a char what the 'daily' sacrament was - and if it wasn't one of the remaining targets on my list, then do NOT do that particular mission offered.

If you turn in the quest, then obviously you can't do another because then that truly would be doing two 'daily' per day. That's not what I am saying - what you get is 2 chances to see if the target is one you need, and only do one of them.

Forgot the exact time of day so don't hold me to this, but something like 2-3pm or close to 5 but NOT tied to the same time daily login rewards change, which is 5pm PST, so maybe close to it but not exactly that hour. As I recall it for sure wasn't like dark out or evening hours when it changed. Best I recall it was like morning to early afternoon was target #1, and then changes to mission offering different target #2 (each day, 2 targets from the list offered)

Basically you get 2 chances a day to see which targets are being offered. I've tested this over and over, and it is not random per char, but same target for all characters/people, kinda like a daily pledge is same dungeon for all chars/people, not just you.

Maybe it's a bug, maybe a feature, who knows. Kinda like how if you get detected, unlike TG heist you can't just abandon mission and have it instantly reset. But you can, sort of.

As reminder, for TG heists, the instant you abandon the mission, you can take a new one with all the mistakes reset. But with DB sacraments, you need to wait a bit, helps to log fully out and let some minutes go by, best I recall like ~10 min. If you don't, then abandoning and retaking the mission will keep your detection penalty so you can't try for flawless - but if you abandon, log out, wait ~10min, you can actually 'reset' the penalties and get a fresh start.

TLDR - you can check twice per day, not just once, as the mission targets for some strange reason changes around early afternoon to mid afternoon'ish. Still makes it a grind but half as much as if you just check once oer day

I didn't know this, thanks man!

Dusk_Coven · October 2019

"Achievements" have in MMOs long since been NOT actual "Achievements", but a tool to make people grind. Because a lot of people are completionists and they "must" complete all "Achievements", no matter how irritating or how much they don't like the particular content.

Same with "levelling" and "badges". Like when Google Maps gives you points and levels for contributing to their database of location information. Because if they let people realize they are basically working for free for Google, people would be less likely to do it. So they need to reframe the action into something that is rewarding for the user. Even though they are doing exactly the same thing -- filling Google's database for free.

… And then there are "Achievements" that people didn't really "Achieve". Probably most of the EmPIErors got their title from win trading.

Tyrion87 · October 2019

Ohhh there are worse achievements, much worse.

Looking at you... orsinium patron achievement!

Not only the city solicitors are not marked on the map (there are addons for that though), but the chances you actually see them in one of their 'fixed' spots are very low and if you do find someone in these spots, it might be other NPC's for some other minor non-achievement related events - instead of city solicitors. Aaaand if you happen to be so lucky to finally see the city solicitor and give him the donation, there is a cooldown of one hour until you can donate again.

Just a few days ago I decided to bother myself with getting this achievement and my current progress is.... 1/15. This is the stupidest achievement design I have ever seen.

Parrot1986 · October 2019

Tyrion87 wrote: »

Ohhh there are worse achievements, much worse.

Looking at you... orsinium patron achievement!

Not only the city solicitors are not marked on the map (there are addons for that though), but the chances you actually see them in one of their 'fixed' spots are very low and if you do find someone in these spots, it might be other NPC's for some other minor non-achievement related events - instead of city solicitors. Aaaand if you happen to be so lucky to finally see the city solicitor and give him the donation, there is a cooldown of one hour until you can donate again.

Just a few days ago I decided to bother myself with getting this achievement and my current progress is.... 1/15. This is the stupidest achievement design I have ever seen.

Maybe just lucky but in the last Orsinium event I saw the NPC pretty much every day heading from shatul wayshrine down to the inn where you pick up the world boss daily quest. Didn’t seem random or difficult for that one.

Pauls · October 2019

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

post the most annoying/hardest achievement you've done in this discussion

My guilds dont do vet achievements runs so getting Spiderkith skin with randoms was harder than doing sacraments without any goal and getting Flawless done.

Raisin · October 2019

Flawless/Blackest Sacrament was killing me for a long time. Much worse than Master Angler. Was ecstatic the day I finally finished it. Had a char parked next to Teranus and just checked each day. As crazy as it drove me though, I don't hate it. Felt very accomplished at the end.

Hidden and Perfect Sacrament also were no issue, as I refuse to hand in any Sacrament with a failed objective anywau and often even abandon an otherwise fine 1-detection run to redo it better.... Don't ask.

idk · October 2019

As someone who completed this achievement the first year DB was out I do not see the issue. It is not challenging. I just takes time to get all the targets. Do it and move on.

Seriously, GL and you can find guides online for many of these achievements.

Vilhjálmur · October 2019

idk wrote: »

As someone who completed this achievement the first year DB was out I do not see the issue. It is not challenging. I just takes time to get all the targets. Do it and move on.

Seriously, GL and you can find guides online for many of these achievements.

No yeah it's really not about being challenging, it's more about the poor RNG design behind it, 20-30 days for an achievement that takes no skill whatsoever, and thanks btw, hope I can get it done in a few days

xpixelatedtkox · October 2019

Obviously not as difficult as veteran achievements, but I do remember the pain of trying to get the Newly Charitable Achievement during the New Life festival. RNG was not on my side, and the quests became mind-numbing... especially when doing it on multiple alts.

redlink1979 · October 2019

@Jacozilla Thanks for the tip.

FierceSam · October 2019

Parrot1986 wrote: »

Tyrion87 wrote: »

Ohhh there are worse achievements, much worse.

Looking at you... orsinium patron achievement!

Not only the city solicitors are not marked on the map (there are addons for that though), but the chances you actually see them in one of their 'fixed' spots are very low and if you do find someone in these spots, it might be other NPC's for some other minor non-achievement related events - instead of city solicitors. Aaaand if you happen to be so lucky to finally see the city solicitor and give him the donation, there is a cooldown of one hour until you can donate again.

Just a few days ago I decided to bother myself with getting this achievement and my current progress is.... 1/15. This is the stupidest achievement design I have ever seen.

Maybe just lucky but in the last Orsinium event I saw the NPC pretty much every day heading from shatul wayshrine down to the inn where you pick up the world boss daily quest. Didn’t seem random or difficult for that one.

I saw this after I had spent the best part of a year visiting the same 5 spawning places every day I logged into get this *** achievement.

I thought it was related to my having finally completed the achievement and was just another way for ZOS to rub my nose in it.

Glad to know it was for everyone.

I’m all for achievements that take time to achieve, but not stupid ones like this or the insane complete 150 go-fetch-its for the Murkmire prologue.

Fishing is bad enough thanks.

Asardes · October 2019

It's just like the other similar ones. You have to basically do the sacraments every day for a couple of weeks to get all targets. Done it on 3 characters. Not terribly stressful since sacraments only take me 3-4 minutes, with maximum rewards - not detected, killed both targets, exited the cave/sewer within 2 minutes of killing the main one - always kill the secondary one first, so you'll have plenty of time.

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

(TL;DR: This achievement sucks ass, post the most annoying/hardest achievement you've done in this discussion)

Don't get me wrong i'm sure there's other ridiculous achievements but seriously what the hell is were the devs thinking with this one?

For those who don't know, this achievement has you doing 6 other grindy achievements from a quest you can only do ONCE per day, some of these achievements has you doing perfect runs that can take a few tries because of how easily you can make mistakes, it's not even a matter of having skill and being good at sneaking, because of one of the achievements needs you to kill EVERY single target, which are 21 in total, and guess what, it's not a rotation, the same target can show up in your daily even if you did it two days ago, EVEN if you manage to pull everything off perfectly this achievement can take you 3 weeks of constant sacraments, and if you're not lucky (like me) it can take you more than 40 days, I'm only one target left from the achievement and it hasn't showed up in 2 weeks, you can't even abandon and see if you get a different target, it's RNG based crap, like seriously, where's the fun in this ***? sacrament dailies get stale after a week or two of doing them, why force people to do them for almost a month if they want the memento? They could at least make it so it's rotation where you know who's gonna be the next target, but nope, go kill the same dude you killed yesterday, better luck next time ***!

I can't do much but rant, I just hope they don't make *** achievements like these in the future, feel free to post down below any achievement you've done that you find ridiculous/grindy/annoying

Black market mogul takes 6 weeks, stealing the max amount per day 7 days a week and only fencing greens or better. They're both annoying but feel great to clear.

kyle.wilson · October 2019

Murkmire Prepper is the worst by far

Asardes · October 2019

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Murkmire Prepper is the worst by far

I'm glad they made Elsweyr prequel dailies much faster and dropped them altogether for Dragonhold.

Zer0_CooL · October 2019

You can quit the quest and restart

WuffyCerulei · October 2019

Idk, pre-fixed Explorer was an absolute pain when Cyrodiil delve bosses spawned once in a blue moon. It took me eons just to finish it because 3 bosses in 3 different delves refused to spawn. Not to mention having to play horse simulator if your faction doesn’t own many keeps. And hostile players.

Asardes · October 2019

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Idk, pre-fixed Explorer was an absolute pain when Cyrodiil delve bosses spawned once in a blue moon. It took me eons just to finish it because 3 bosses in 3 different delves refused to spawn. Not to mention having to play horse simulator if your faction doesn’t own many keeps. And hostile players.

Yep, Bloodymane cave on EP characters was the thing back then ...

Arilenya · October 2019

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

idk wrote: »

As someone who completed this achievement the first year DB was out I do not see the issue. It is not challenging. I just takes time to get all the targets. Do it and move on.

Seriously, GL and you can find guides online for many of these achievements.

No yeah it's really not about being challenging, it's more about the poor RNG design behind it, 20-30 days for an achievement that takes no skill whatsoever, and thanks btw, hope I can get it done in a few days

Unfortunately mate ESO (and any game in general that knows what insane limits it can push to with its playerbase) thrive off of anything that unconditionally wastes the time of its consumer, and nothing is more effective against countering skillful play than putting a random modifier into it.
Master Angler? Pulling random 1 fish of a total # of a bag for months.
vMA Flawless? Not getting a random poison plant to spawn on top of a Mage enemy.
Collect that one specific BG BoP Motif? Good luck lmao.
Million Dollar Aetheric Cypher to sell? Random lottery draw from killing a rat.
That specific BiS weapon from The X of Y dungeon? It'll give one to the guy spamming Impulse in a raid on his 2nd go and you'll get nothing for 2 years.

Welcome to modern games. You'll get it eventually, just need to ask yourself if it will mean anything to you later.

Kagukan · October 2019

Call me crazy but I actually like that some achievements take a decent amount of time to complete.

starkerealm · October 2019

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

(TL;DR: This achievement sucks ass, post the most annoying/hardest achievement you've done in this discussion)

Don't get me wrong i'm sure there's other ridiculous achievements but seriously what the hell is were the devs thinking with this one?

For those who don't know, this achievement has you doing 6 other grindy achievements from a quest you can only do ONCE per day, some of these achievements has you doing perfect runs that can take a few tries because of how easily you can make mistakes, it's not even a matter of having skill and being good at sneaking, because of one of the achievements needs you to kill EVERY single target, which are 21 in total, and guess what, it's not a rotation, the same target can show up in your daily even if you did it two days ago, EVEN if you manage to pull everything off perfectly this achievement can take you 3 weeks of constant sacraments, and if you're not lucky (like me) it can take you more than 40 days, I'm only one target left from the achievement and it hasn't showed up in 2 weeks, you can't even abandon and see if you get a different target, it's RNG based crap, like seriously, where's the fun in this ***? sacrament dailies get stale after a week or two of doing them, why force people to do them for almost a month if they want the memento? They could at least make it so it's rotation where you know who's gonna be the next target, but nope, go kill the same dude you killed yesterday, better luck next time ***!

I can't do much but rant, I just hope they don't make *** achievements like these in the future, feel free to post down below any achievement you've done that you find ridiculous/grindy/annoying

So, fun trivia. Undetected doesn't mean undetected. It means you earned less than 5 "points" of detection. Hilariously, it's actually possible to execute guards from stealth without losing a point.

Stamblade Vampire (or wearing Night's Silence), with Blade of Woe and this one isn't too bad.

Mirkmire Prepper. One Hundred and Fifty!? ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY!? I don't even care that you can do it in 25 days, ONE HUNDRED AND LIZARD FLIPPING FIFTY!?

Tryxus · October 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

Vilhjálmur wrote: »

(TL;DR: This achievement sucks ass, post the most annoying/hardest achievement you've done in this discussion)

Don't get me wrong i'm sure there's other ridiculous achievements but seriously what the hell is were the devs thinking with this one?

For those who don't know, this achievement has you doing 6 other grindy achievements from a quest you can only do ONCE per day, some of these achievements has you doing perfect runs that can take a few tries because of how easily you can make mistakes, it's not even a matter of having skill and being good at sneaking, because of one of the achievements needs you to kill EVERY single target, which are 21 in total, and guess what, it's not a rotation, the same target can show up in your daily even if you did it two days ago, EVEN if you manage to pull everything off perfectly this achievement can take you 3 weeks of constant sacraments, and if you're not lucky (like me) it can take you more than 40 days, I'm only one target left from the achievement and it hasn't showed up in 2 weeks, you can't even abandon and see if you get a different target, it's RNG based crap, like seriously, where's the fun in this ***? sacrament dailies get stale after a week or two of doing them, why force people to do them for almost a month if they want the memento? They could at least make it so it's rotation where you know who's gonna be the next target, but nope, go kill the same dude you killed yesterday, better luck next time ***!

I can't do much but rant, I just hope they don't make *** achievements like these in the future, feel free to post down below any achievement you've done that you find ridiculous/grindy/annoying

So, fun trivia. Undetected doesn't mean undetected. It means you earned less than 5 "points" of detection. Hilariously, it's actually possible to execute guards from stealth without losing a point.

Stamblade Vampire (or wearing Night's Silence), with Blade of Woe and this one isn't too bad.

Mirkmire Prepper. One Hundred and Fifty!? ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY!? I don't even care that you can do it in 25 days, ONE HUNDRED AND LIZARD FLIPPING FIFTY!?

Shoulda renamed that one to "Jee-Lar's Slave"